


doppelgänger

by Falcine



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canonical Character Death, Gen, and they don't come back properly, but hilbert only in passing, but kind of weird, more of like a 'everyone comes back' au, otherwise basically everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcine/pseuds/Falcine
Summary: Whatever Lovelace was, she comes back. Hilbert has his secret room and his secret chair. Maxwell has her own precautions to take, namely, in the form of taking the time to plant an artificially intelligent form of herself in the Hephaestus's system before everything went wrong.'Oh don’t be like that, Commander. Denial isn’t a good look on you.'Minkowski’s jaw is so tight her teeth feel like they’re about to crack, but she wrenches her mouth open. “Maxwell,” she spits.





	1. Allegro

The contact event had come and gone. The storms had come and gone. They’d been without Hera for a terrifying few days, and the hull of the Hephaestus rattled non-stop for half of those, but then the dust and static all cleared and everything had come back online, nothing worse for the wear. Nothing new had breached their ship. Nothing had happened. Nothing came in.

In the end, nothing much changed, which wasn’t saying much, because that only meant they’d gone from the  _ extremely  _ fucked up and potentially life shattering possibility of alien first contact looming over their heads to the only slightly less fucked up but still life shattering reality where all your human flaws come spilling out over the short course of less than 24 hours.

Minkowski avoids three things on her way to the bridge now: the observation deck (where Kepler’s strung up all nice and obedient for now), one of the empty officer’s quarters that was nicely tucked out of the way (where they’d stashed Jacobi), and Hilbert’s old quarters. Where they’d put Lovelace.

She pushes herself past the neat row of doors without letting herself look back

She is the ship’s Commander (again, officially), and they’d all had plenty enough time to grieve. Time to get back to work.

(The fact that there are few options to work  _ with  _ doesn’t escape Minkowski, but, what else was there to do? It’s not like they had many options to begin with.)

“Hera?” she calls up, hesitant, even now. “You there?”

The speakers crackle.

Minkowski smiles slightly at the familiar sound.

The smile drops when the crackling isn’t followed up with Hera chiming in. For half a second, Minkowski’s brain short circuits—ha, ha, irony strikes at the least opportune moments—and she hears Hera say  _ right here Commander  _ in her head, but the speakers only give her static.

“Hera?” Minkowski tries again, her heart stuttering in sync with the glitching in the sound system. “ _ Please  _ tell me you’re just trying to deal with some minor emergency somewhere else and that’s why you haven’t responded yet.” She doesn’t need another major emergency. None of them do.

But then again the universe never cared about what they did or didn’t need, or else they’d all be back on solid Earth again.

The speakers continue to crackle.

“Hera? If this is a joke, it’s not funny!” she calls.

Nothing but empty static.

“Dammit,” she mutters, and swipes a hand down her face.

Minkowski turns and puts both her hands solidly on the railing. She breathes in, then out. She aims a solid punch at the  _ piece of junk ship  _ and allows herself a frustrated growl.  

Then she straightens and starts making her way to the bridge again.

Halfway there, the crackling in the speakers cuts off.

Then— _ You have an… interesting way of dealing with your problems, Commander,  _ a voice filters down through the garbled speaker system, distorted and glitching. It doesn’t quite sound like Hera, but weirder things’ve happened, so Minkowski slowly squints up at the ceiling.

“Hera?” she asks again.

_ Oh, I’m not Hera,  _ the voice says, and Minkowski feels her stomach drop out. Strange, mangled laughter washes over her—how many speakers are there in this hallway?  _ Hmm, I don’t really know why it’s doing that… maybe if I—oh! Oh, okay, I think that worked…  _ as the voice continues, it grows steadily clearer, until Minkowski is very, very certain this definitely isn’t Hera speaking to her through the Hephaestus's old, worn speakers.

_ Ah, there we go.  _ Much  _ better,  _ Dr. Alana Maxwell’s voice echoes through the empty corridor.  _ I presume you know who I am now, don’t you,  _ Commander?

“What is this?” Minkowski manages to ask. Her first thought is that she’s gone completely crazy. What  _ is  _ this? A haunting? Is this ship determined to literalize every single one of her ghosts? Minkowski’s hand tightens on the railing.

Laughter, again, clearer this time and sounding exactly like Maxwell’s.  _ A precaution,  _ the voice says.  _ You didn’t think I came up here with all of you thinking we were all coming back down alive, did you? _

As Minkowski’s mouth runs dry, the voice picks up speed,  _ I suppose it must be upsetting, hearing me. If I’m talking to you like this, now, it means that last time you checked I was...well… I  _ wasn’t.

The voice keeps laughing. Minkowski doesn’t find any of this funny.

“Who the hell are you?”

_ Oh don’t be like that, Commander. Denial isn’t a good look on you. _

Minkowski’s jaw is so tight her teeth feel like they’re about to crack, but she wrenches her mouth open. “Maxwell,” she spits.

_ Bravo. _

“How are you talking to me?” If her voice threatens to crack on the last syllable, she refuses to acknowledge it.

_ You don’t sound too choked up that I’m back,  _ Maxwell says, then something approximating a sigh blows out of the still-crackling speakers.  _ Now, the long answer is a bit tedious and also involves a couple of degrees you don’t have, so I’ll keep it simple: I built an AI just in case you little motley crew was crazy enough to do something drastic. Before you start asking about whether or not I’m  _ really  _ the same person you knew and—well let’s say tolerated, the answer is yes. I have all the same memories and I’ve spent years mapping out the quirks of my typical neurological pathway patterns, so for all intents and purposes, Alana Maxwell and I are interchangeable. The differences are negligible.   _

The explanation makes Minkowski’s head spin. She’s never been one for contemplating whether or not AIs are people—because of  _ course  _ they are—but no number of philosophy classes prepares you for suddenly talking to what sums up to the woman you’d shot point blank just a few days ago. So. Minkowski shoves everything aside to think about later.

Right now, all she’s responsible for is her crew.

“What did you do to Hera?” she asks.

Maxwell scoffs.  _ So many interesting questions about pushing the boundaries of AI, what with me having  _ successfully  _ approximated an individual’s  _ consciousness  _ and all, but, sure, go ahead, choose the most maudlin one to raise. I don’t know what I expected. _

Minkowski fights the urge to punch the wall again. “Where’s. Hera?”

_ Hera’s fine, Commander. I just took the mic from her for a little bit is all. She’s still rattling around in here, safe and sound. _

For a moment, Minkowski can only stare up into the dull metal ceiling of the ship. It does sound like something is rattling, but, that’s nothing new these days. She blinks, once, twice, then suddenly realizes she’s been asking Maxwell questions like she had actually expected a straight answer.

Minkowski looks back towards the end of the hall and changes her mind.

She takes the turn to get to the observation deck instead, already mentally steeling herself for the confrontation to come.

_ Oh, what, are you just gonna ignore me? Real mature,  _ Maxwell’s voice practically follows her through the halls.  _ I have questions, you know. Starting with: what did you do to Kepler? And Jacobi? Actually, how’s about you just fill me in on the last couple of days? _

Minkowski lets out a rattling sigh of her own.

She pulls herself alongside the hall, still resolutely ignoring Maxwell.

A few days ago, she might’ve just thought she’d gone insane. But this was the least weird thing that happened aboard the good old Hephaestus lately, so she just kept going.

_ You could at least tell me how I died. _

Minkowski stops.

Above her head, Maxwell’s voice is caustic and sharp and metallic and too much.  _ My memory logs don’t stretch that far, unfortunately, so it would be nice to know all the heinous things you’ve done over the past few days. Or even all the heinous things that I’ve done, now that I think about it.  _ It isn’t possible for anyone to sound so chipper, Minkowski thinks. AI or not.  _ Aw, come on, Minkowski, there has to be a reason you’re avoiding me like the plague. What did I do to you? _

_ Nothing,  _ Minkowski wants to say. In the end, the only person Maxwell had hurt was Hera. It had nothing to do with her.

She slides her eyes closed, hands clenching into fists to hide her shaking fingertips.

Outside the ship, something shudders. Their world tilts, until Minkowski has to grip the railing with her other hand too to stay upright. She imagines Eiffel yelling at Hera from somewhere else on the ship, imagines Hera frantically trying to explain this mess while fixing their course. She can’t even bring herself to care when the ship tilts even more dangerously.

_ Oh,  _ Maxwell’s voice comes through breathy and breezy. Minkowski wonders for a stupid, wild moment about how you could even get a computer to sound like that. That real. That human.  _ Oh that makes so much more sense,  _ she says, and then she starts to laugh.

The ship tilts back on course, but the temperature drops noticeably. Maxwell is still laughing.

_ Am I right to say that the better question would be: what did  _ you  _ do to  _ me?

Minkowsi lets out her own sigh and drops her forehead against the suddenly freezing cold walls. “Yes, Maxwell,” she says. The truth wasn’t something she could avoid.

Maxwell chuckles again and this time, Minkowski can hear the sputters in the speakers, the little glitches that don’t quite encompass the full range of that same sarcastic voice.  _ It’s adorable how torn up you sound about it,  _ she says dryly.

This, Minkowski can’t quite wrap her mind around. There was something deeply about  _ Minkowski  _ being the one desperately trying to get away from this situation. Wouldn’t Maxwell be furious? But, then again, it’s hard to fathom that there was even still a Maxwell hanging around to be furious.

“You know,” Minkowski mutters darkly, “I’m starting to wonder if you were ever human to begin with.”

_ Maybe not,  _ Maxwell says,  _ but does it really matter? I’m still here, aren’t I? _

“You’re making me wish you weren’t.”

_ What’re you gonna do? Kill me again? _

The wave of blind...fury? Guilt? Unease. Whatever it is, it washes over Minkowski like a goddamn tsunami. It knocks her back to the cold wall, but then it makes her push off the side with a frustrated growl, flying down the hallway again. “What I am going to  _ do, _ ” she says through gritted teeth, “is go interrogate your boss about what the  _ hell  _ is going on. And then I am going to find some way to get Hera back online so I don’t have to listen to you talk anymore.”

_ Cute,  _ Maxwell deadpans, but Minkowski’s not falling for the same tricks again

She swings around the corner, until the observation deck is in sight.

Making a beeline for the door, Minkowski balls her hand into a fist and bangs with all her pent up frustration, well aware that she was the one with the keys.

From inside, she hears a dull groan.

The door slams open, then swings lazily back and forth. Minkowski slams it shut behind her too for good measure, temporarily satisfied by the loud  _ bang. _

Kepler looks up at her, bags heavy under his eyes. He has the gall to offer her up a smirk. “To what do I owe the pleasure,  _ Commander _ ?” he asks. The title still sounds like an insult every time it comes out of his slimy mouth.

Minkowski stalks up to his side and slams her hands over the head of the chair he’s lounging on. “Care to explain why you’ve been tampering with my ship?”

“Tampering with your ship?” Kepler parrots, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Minkowski says, leaning in.

Kepler shrugs. Minkowski’s anger flares. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Commander,” Kepler says. “But I am curious to hear your hypothesis for how I managed to evade your  _ surely  _ attentive watch to get more than a couple of feet within a console.”

Minkowski scoffs. “I don’t have the time to do this with you, Kepler.”

“Do  _ what,  _ exactly?”

She grabs a handful of the collar of his shirt. Sure, the effect is slightly diminished by the fact that they’re both half floating in the zero gravity, but it’s close enough to make her point. She yanks sharply to drive it home. “I want to know exactly what you and your little intelligence crew did to mess with  _ my  _ mother program.”

The look on Kepler’s face can only be described as a bemused smile, which jiggles the little doubtful voice at the back of Minkowski’s head that wonders if, maybe, he doesn’t know either.

“What are you talking about?” Kepler murmurs, sounding genuinely confused.

Minkowski tightens her grip and jabs a finger up to the ceiling with her other hand. “Hera?” she calls.

For a moment, the speakers spark to life but stay crackling, just like they had for before. Minkowski has a brief moment of doubt—was Hera’s voice going to come spilling over them, proving that she was hallucinating the whole thing?—but then Maxwell’s amused little chuckle comes through instead, and Minkowski feels an acute mixture of discomfort and relief prick her chest.

_ That was almost painful to watch,  _ Maxwell says dryly.  _ You know, I could’ve just not said anything and you would’ve looked like a crazy person. _

Minkowski scowls. She doesn’t exactly need Maxwell’s help for that.

She pulls Kepler close. “Explain,” she growls right in his face, fury grabbing her jaw so stiffly it’s all she can say. She grinds her teeth together.

Kepler, for once, looks actually baffled. He hadn’t even looked that taken aback when the contact event was supposedly happening for God’s sake.

“I have to say,” Kepler pronounces each word slowly, languidly, as if he’s trying each one out in his mouth before letting it slip out, “I am very… impressed, Maxwell.”

_ You did always tell us to take every precaution, sir,  _ Maxwell says.

“I guess there are some precautions even I didn’t know were possible,” Kepler says contemplatively, then he grins up at the ceiling. “Don’t go thinking that’s a compliment.”

_ Of course not, sir. _

Before Minkowski can  _ shake  _ the answers out of him, Kepler turns to her with a smug twist to his lips. “I’m afraid even I had no idea this was going on, Commander. You’ll have to ask Dr. Maxwell for clarification if you want it.”

“You—”

“Have no more answers than you do,  _ Commander.” _

Kepler’s grin widens, impossibly contemptuous. Minkowski is certain he’s enjoying this as much as Maxwell must’ve been.

With a growl, she shoves him back against the chair as hard as she can, then turns on her heel.

When she pulls the door open, Kepler speaks up again from behind her, “I hope you don’t come harassing me every single time something unexplainable happens,  _ Commander.  _ I’m sure you know by now that many such… anomalies… are prone to occurring on this station.”

Minkowski slowly turns back around. “My job is to protect my men, and if that means forcing any answers out of you, then I’m glad to do it. Colonel.” She gives him a mirthless smile of her own. “So next time one of your anomalies happens again, learn to expect me at your door.”

She shoves the door shut, not wanting to look at his ridiculous sly smile anymore.

Some part of her knows that there is a nugget of truth in his words—that he really hadn’t a hand in ordering Maxwell to make some science-fiction-esque robotic copy of herself—which meant that there could’ve been more things hidden around the Hephaestus or Urania that she had no clue about. Dangerous things. Minkowski makes a mental note to survey both the ships’ systems after she figures out what to do with Maxwell lurking around.

_ Didn’t go exactly as you thought it would, did it? _

“Are you just going to keep following me around?” Minkowski asks sharply.

Maxwell is silent for a moment, then she sighs.  _ I haven’t exactly talked to anybody else yet. Didn’t think it would be… tactful to spring it on everyone. _

“Riiiight,” Minkowski says, feeling a pounding headache start up behind her eyes. “Just like you sprung it on me.”

_ Well you were in the right place and I’d just figured out how the speakers worked so I figured I’d get it over with.  _ Minkowski can somehow hear a smile in her voice, despite an AI’s lack of physical ability to smile at all, when she says,  _ Did I spook you? _

Minkowski sighs. “Look, I can’t exactly do anything to stop you from doing… whatever it is you want to do.”

_ I know that.  _ Maxwell still sounds far too amused.

“Could you just—get Hera back on the speakers? And go talk to whoever you want to talk to. I just need some space.” Minkowski purses her lips. “ _ Please?” _

_ Well since you asked so nicely,  _ Maxwell mutters.  _ But, yeah, sure, I can hand the reins back over to Hera. You were getting a bit dull to talk to anyways. _

Minkowski doesn’t even have the chance to be annoyed before Maxwell chirps a quick  _ Ciao!  _ and the crackling shuts down.

For  _ hopefully  _ the final time that day, Minkowski tilts her eyes up to the ceiling and asks, “Hera?”

_ Ohm-mygosh Commander Minkowski,  _ Hera’s familiar voice responds.  _ I am  _ so  _ sorry. It was like—she just blocked every single one of my attempts to get the speakers back and I just—I didn’t even know it was  _ possible  _ to mess with my circuit pathways that much and— _

Minkowski relaxes against the corridor. “It’s alright, Hera,” she says. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

_ Yeah… me too… _

“How much of that did you hear?”

_ Everything.  _ Hera sounds more curt than usual, a thread of lingering hurt in her voice. Minkowski is used to this, at least.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she says, even though she has no real idea what to do. “We’re going to figure this out.”

_ Are you sure?  _ Hera’s sarcasm drips from the speakers, just as usual.  _ Because I’m starting to think that the universe just really  _ re-really  _ wants me to keep living with anyone who’s ever decided it was okay to m-mess around in my head.  _ She scoffs agitatedly.

“We’ll figure it out together,” Minkowski says, trying to make herself believe it even though some part of her knew that the most likely scenario was just that they’d have to learn to live with Maxwell’s presence. It’s ironic, that—the only person who was probably capable of… dealing with the situation was Maxwell herself.

And. Well.

Hera’s still ranting. Minkowski listens to it all with exasperated fondness. For some reason, she finds herself paying attention more and more to the warm inflections in her voice. Even when it glitches out, she sounds so utterly, impossibly human. Minkowski’s never thought of how a machine could even replicate that before. The thought simply had never crossed her mind.

Hera is a person, just as real and living and—well not breathing, but that wasn’t anything important—vital as any one of them. Just as human.

Which means…

In her mind, she can still hear Maxwell’s dry remarks. Not sharp and curling like Hera’s voice, but just as warm. Just as… human.

Minkowski’s killed Maxwell once. She isn’t going to—she  _ can’t  _ do it again.

“Let’s go find Eiffel,” she finds herself saying, and Hera cuts herself off to say,  _ Right, right, that’s a good idea Commander. _

 

* * *

 

“Wait, what?”

Minkowski sighs. “What part of this are you not getting, Eiffel?”

“The part where it was possible to go all Matrix and upload your brain into some computer!” Eiffel is practically shouting. It’s almost comforting. He panics enough for the both of them.

“Yeah, well,” Minkowski says, shrugging. “We’ve all been learning a lot of things are possible lately, haven’t we?”

Eiffel blanches. “But—”

_ But  _ what? Maxwell’s voice suddenly cuts in.  _ It’s just advanced computational science is all. No biggie. Besides, there wasn’t any  _ uploading.  _ I just made an AI that could act as a substitute for me. It’s not that much more complicated than, oh, say, Hera’s existence or anything. _

Eiffel freezes.

He slowly tilts his face up. His eyes go very wide.

_ Eiffel? _

There’s nothing funny about the entire situation, but Minkowski still finds it hard to bite back her laugh when Eiffel lets out a tiny, pathetic squeak.

“Holy mother of god,” he breathes.

Minkowski snorts, lets herself smile. “I know Eiffel. I know.”


	2. Adagio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of conversations on the state of things

“D’you think you could pull a Jedi mind trick and figure out what she’s thinking?”

This is where Hera would roll her eyes, if she had eyes to roll. Instead, she gives Eiffel an exasperated sigh, saying,  _ no, Officer Eiffel, I can’t. _

“Darn. Talk about a missed opportunity. Would be helpful if we could, you know, just get rid of any more problems before they show up again. Inevitably.”

Doug is tossing a ball from hand to hand, letting it float in zero-G for a minute or two before flicking it back into his palm. It’s causing a slight change in pressure every time he pushes it, but that’s miniscule compared to the changes in carbon dioxide and oxygen percentages in the air every time he exhales. Hera runs through the calculations twice, just in case, just to make sure she hasn’t missed some leak somewhere that might plunge them into another klaxon-blaring emergency for the, what, seventh time that week?

These days, Hera is stretched thinner than ever, though having a pesky guest in the ship’s OS isn’t exactly helping.

It’s even worse knowing that there might be something Maxwell could do that she wasn’t aware of. That first couple of seconds of trying  _ so hard  _ to push through to talk to Commander Minkowski, only to be blocked at every attempt by that painfully familiar handiwork was… well… Hera doesn’t like to relive it, much. 

Maxwell rewrote her without even batting an eye. She wrenched Hera’s ever-shaky controls away with nothing but a couple keystrokes and that smug smirk, and that was from the outside. 

Maybe this is the closest thing she can come to a nightmare: Maxwell inside the ship, nudging up against her consciousness every time she accesses a comm or opens a door or does anything at all. 

Hera might’ve been stretched thin, but she’s never felt more hemmed in. 

Still, she doesn’t like much to leave conversations on autopilot anymore, so when Doug gets bored and inevitably starts talking again, she tunes back in.

“What’s it feel like, then?”

_ I dunno how to describe it. Kind of like, w-well, imagine you were in this really, really big room, and maybe it was kind of hard to get around because there was garbage strewn all over the place— _

“Hey! I don’t leave  _ that  _ much of a mess around! …Anymore.”

Around Doug, Hera wishes she could roll her eyes pretty often.  _ It’s a metaphor, Officer Eiffel, _ she deadpans.

Doug laughs. “Alright then. Metaphor away. .”

_ Right, well, all so it’s the garbage is kind of all the problems on the ship.  _

Doug lets out a low whistle. If Hera’s honest, it’s kind of shrill. At least that’s what her speaker frequency readings are telling her. “That’s a lot of garbage then.” 

_ Oh  _ yeah, Hera says.  _ There is always  _ so  _ much garbage. Like, I  _ just  _ got used to the weird wiring in the cooling system! And the sticky docking port in the east wing! Did you know it won’t lock unless you do the sequence at exactly the right timing? Or that the lab doors are jammed pretty much  _ all  _ the time and— _ Hera cuts herself off before she can go into an another obsessive systems diagnostic spiral that would inevitably end in her being too caught up in trying to build precautions to ridiculous emergencies to patch Commander Minkowski through the comms. And it wasn’t like she’d ever managed to actually prevent all the various emergencies anyways. 

_ Nevermind,  _ Hera says.  _ Anyways, imagine you just got used to your room’s layout, but then someone puts an impenetrable wall right in the middle of it. And you still have to walk around, but now you have to maneuver around this  _ thing _ every single time you want to go  _ anywhere.  _ At all.  _

“Huh,” Doug says, the ball stilling in his hands. Camera 28a tells Hera that he’s rubbing his chin in consideration, brows slightly furrowed. “That sounds…”

_ Incredibly inconvenient? So annoying it makes me want to blow up an entire wing of this ship just to see what it’ll do?  _

“I… was going to go with ‘pain in the ass’, but your version works.” Doug tilts his head, squinting up into one of the camera lens as he does sometimes to get her to pay closer attention. Hera diverts 2% more of her consciousness to the conversation in response. “Say, you aren’t… actually going to blow anything up, are you?” 

Hera laughs. She diverts another 5% of herself away from processing all the various trajectories they could take back to Earth and to the conversation.  _ Well…,  _ she teases. 

“Whoa, slow down there HAL,” Doug says, then grins widers. “If we’re blowing things up, I want in.” 

_ You can be my second in command.  _

“Rogue AI. I like it.” Doug leans back, floating in midair like he’s on a beach, legs kicked up. “Hey Hera?”

_ Yeah?  _

“What’s it like in there?” 

_ In…where?  _

 “You know. Up there in your head. What’s it feel like to be everywhere?” 

 This gives Hera pause. It’s not like she hasn’t thought about it before. It’s just a little hard to explain, is all. _Imagine... being able to just sort of see everything in the room without turning around._

“Huh.” 

 Silence. Doug remains uncharacteristically still. Hera pours 0.5% of her mind back into anxiously calculating orbital patterns. 

 “Is it. You know. Weird? Having her there with you?” 

 If Hera cares to probe out a little bit, she can feel bits of the ship whirring to life without her telling them to. It’s… odd. That’s not quite the right word, but there is no quite equivalent word for how it feels to have someone else rummaging around in her headspace the way Maxwell is right now. There’s no _human_ word for it. 

 Hera hesitates. 

 “Hera?”

  _I’m… thinking._

 Another chuckle. “Isn’t that like a piece of cake for your big ol’genius brain?”  

_ Oh of course it is. I’m just trying to put it in a way that you’d understand, Officer Eiffel.  _

 “Ha _ha._ Like we haven’t all heard that one before.” 

  _I_ _’m not really kidding._

 Doug squints up at her again. “I’m not a total idiot, you know?” 

  _Just mostly one, then?_ Hera laughs before Doug can get worked up. _I just meant, it’s hard to figure out how to explain it to_ anyone. She pauses, trying to figure out if that was the cooling vents opening on their own again or if Maxwell was doing something funny. 

 "Hey it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do on this piece of crap lately.” Doug tosses the ball around again, half-heartedly this time. 

_I don’t like it,_ Hera admits. _I d-don’t like having h-her here. On the ship. With me. I’m scared of what she could do to the ship—what she could do to me, if she really wanted to. I just really_ really really _do not like it when people m-mess around with my_ b-brain _and she’s… she’s practically living in it now!_  

Somewhere, below in engineering, a fuse shortcircuits. 

Hera sighs, letting the audio drop and scrape through her speakers. She makes a mental note to fix that later.  _ I’m s-sorry,  _ she manages.  _ I’m just frustrated.  _

Doug stops. He holds the ball, very still. 

Then, he pushes himself up and comes close to the camera again, but this time, he puts his hand up against the glass and taps a couple times. “You see me?” 

Camera 28a shakes a little, maybe, but it’s not like Doug’s any closer to her than he was before. Hera never really has the heart to tell him.  _ I can  _ always  _ see you, Officer Eiffel.  _

“Right, right,” Doug says distractedly. “You know I got you, right? What you want me to go smash in some panels? Spook our weird Maxwell-malware a little? I can go for a little bit of destruction if that makes you feel better.” 

_ You know that’d hurt my systems too.  _

“Alright. We’ll go for a bit of psychological warfare then. Just say the word.” 

Screw the fusebox. Hera diverts her idle thoughts—the ones poking around at the corners of her control, the ones trying to seek out just where Hera ends and where Maxwell begins on this mess of a ship—to the conversation with Doug.  _ What do you have in mind?  _

Doug’s grin grows devious. “ _ Now  _ we’re talking!” 

 

* * *

 

She _must_ be going crazy, otherwise she wouldn’t be standing in front of Lovelace’s door, hand poised to knock. Minkowski worries at her lip, all the hot-wired nerves piling up on her. She hasn’t been here since they’d set Lovelace up nearly a week ago. They haven’t spoken. And. Well this wasn’t exactly the best news to start up  

“Don’t back out now,” she mutters to herself. “C’mon, don’t be such a goddamned coward.” 

Gritting her teeth, Minkowski raps her knuckles against the heavy metal door. 

There is silence. And then, the intercom buzzes on.  _ Minkowski?  _ (not) Lovelace asks, her voice tired and croaky still. 

“Yeah,” Minkowski says. “There’s… I need to tell you something.” 

More silence. It drags. Minkowski clenches her hands into fists at her sides and wait.  

At last, the door slides open.  

Inside, it is dark. Minkowski steps in gingerly. The room is mostly empty. Lovelace had been a neat person before… before everything happened, and it doesn’t look like any of that’s changed now. It doesn’t really look like anything’s changed now, which is half the problem, really. 

Lovelace looks up. There are heavy bags under her eyes. “What is it, Minkowski?” she asks. She sits on the edge of her cot, hands hanging down between her legs. She looks godawful. Minkowski thinks she can relate. 

“It’s really nothing that big—” 

“Then why are you here?” 

Minkowski blanches. 

Lovelace drags her mouth into a slow smile. “Admit that you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t something either really weird or really urgent.” 

“I…” 

“It’s fine.” Lovelace scoffs, picking at some threads on the thin cot. “I’d be freaked out too. Hell, I  _ am  _ freaked out.” 

“Right.” Minkowski takes a deep breath, casts a glance up to the ceiling. She wonders if Maxwell is listening, even now, or if it’s Hera, watching over them like always. Better to get it over with then. “It’s about Maxwell.” 

Lovelace raises an eyebrow. “This isn’t about to become a confessional, is it?” 

“No,” Minkowski snaps, maybe because that hits a bit too close to home right now. She sighs. “No, it’s just. SI-5 was more paranoid than we’d thought, I guess.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Maxwell wrote an AI. Of herself. And she set it loose on the ship so I thought I’d let you know just so you wouldn’t think you were going crazy like I thought if she ever shows up here.” 

For a moment, Lovelace only blinks at her, sitting straighter up on the cot in shock. Minkowski bites down hard on her lip.

“That’s all,” she says when Lovelace doesn’t respond. “I just thought it wouldn’t be right not to tell you.” 

She turns to go, but the Lovelace calls, “Wait,” and Minkowski steps back into the barren room, still too tense. 

Lovelace works her jaw. “Is it… what’s it like?” 

Minkowski barks out a laugh. “It’s like living with a ghost.” 

She realizes her mistake when Lovelace flinches back. Minkowski stands awkwardly, halfway to leaving still. Lovelace’s shoulders drop and so does her gaze. Her eyes are focused on something in the corner of the room, too dark for Minkowski to discern. 

“Must be uncanny,” Lovelace mutters. 

“Yeah,” Minkowski says. Then, because the question’s been eating away at her since… since the near-contact event, she asks, “What’s it like for  _ you _ ?” 

For once, headstrong Isabel Lovelace looks more lost than anything else. She shrugs. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like anything’s changed. I still remember…” she grimaces, then shakes her head. “I still remember most of it. I still feel like the same person. I just… I don’t _know,_ Minkowski.”  

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Minkowski hears Maxwell’s voice again.  _ For all intents and purposes, Alana Maxwell and I are the same. The differences are negligible.  _

Standing here, Minkowski sees the same Lovelace she has always known.  

But then again, according to Kepler, she’s never really known Lovelace. The only person who could shed some light on the confusing situation is… well he’s dead (too) and it’s mostly her fault (too). 

“I don’t know either,” Minkowski admits. “You don’t have to stay here, though. As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever the hell you want on this ship.”  

Lovelace’s mouth twitches into a smile again. “It is getting kind of stuffy in here.” 

“If you want, I could use some help on fixing some panels in the bridge later.” 

“Yeah,” Lovelace says, drawing the word out as if trying it out. “Alright. I’d like that.” 

 

* * *

 

Jacobi is busy figuring out if today is the worst day of his life or if that dubious honour should go to any one of the days this past week, when he loses his mind. 

He stands up, glaring up into the corner of the room as if that would make the insistent voice  _ go the hell away.  _

But, of course, it only comes back, louder this time. 

_ Daniel?  _

Jacobi clamps a hand over his ears. “I am definitely going insane,” he mutters. 

The voice sighs and it’s so goddamn familiar that Jacobi considers, for half a second, if maybe it’s a ghost instead, come to torment him. He lets his hands fall and hang uselessly at his sides.

_ Come on, Daniel,  _ the voice says.  _ You look pathetic.  _

If this was some crazed machination of his own mind, Jacobi likes to think that he’d be a little nicer to himself, but then again, he hasn’t been feeling particularly kind lately. 

“You would, too, if you’ve been locked in a room the size of a broom closet for a week,” Jacobi mutters. 

_ I mean, I’ve been  _ dead,  _ so. I think I win there.  _ A pause.  _ For a given definition of winning.  _

Jacobi shoots another tired glare up to the ceiling. “Please tell me I’m dreaming right now.” 

_ Ugh, I’m disappointed. Who knew you were so close-minded, Daniel?  _

“Well what am I supposed to think? People don’t just come back to life, you know.” 

_ Excuse me, but I  _ am  _ a genius.  _

Jacobi closes his eyes. This hallucination, or dream, or ghost, whatever it was—it sounded so achingly familiar that it made his head pound. “You sound like her,” he mumured before he could stop himself. 

The voice is blissfully silent for a moment.  

Then, _Listen, remember when I told you to take precautions before we came up here?_  

Jacobi frowns. Distantly, he remembers Maxwell warning him in that breezy way of hers, that it would be dangerous, that Kepler told them to be prepared for anything (“and I mean  _ anything _ !”) to go wrong. He remembers not speaking a word of their plans to each other (“I mean, who knows, what if you turn on me?”). 

_Well,_ the voice continues, softer and less caustic now, _this was mine._  

Jacobi opens his eyes. He lifts a hand up to the wall, then stumbles and leans into it. “What did you do?” he asks faintly.  

_ I programmed an AI,  _ she says, and if she were here she’d be giving him her smugest of smug grins, hair toss and all.  _ You know how I’ve been tracking my neural patterns for  _ years,  _ so when the assignment came up, I just set up an upload link for hard memory files and overlaid it all on one of Goddard’s latest prototypes and kept it hidden in a backchannel on the ship. And, well, I guess things went pear shaped, but here I am. Voila.  _

And, shit. That was actually entirely plausible. It made more sense than a full blown hallucination, anyhow (Jacobi knows people don’t just break like this. He’s known it all along, but…) 

“Maxwell?” he asks, barely hoping.  

_The one and only._ She laughs. _Well, I guess not the_ only. _That’s the entire point of this, after all._  

Jacobi laughs shakily. “God, Maxwell.”  

She doesn’t answer immediately. There is only the dull whirring of the ship, the hums of things going on as usual around him that he’s gotten used to over the past weel. Maxwell was right. He _was_ becoming rather pathetic.  

_I know, Daniel,_ she finally says. _I know._  

“I should’ve known you loved those computers so much you’d upload your brain into one someday,” he says, then laughs.  

_Well I didn’t really_ upload _myself,_ she says dryly. _Weren’t you paying attention? I’m an AI; not an uploaded consciousness. I suppose there isn’t_ too _much of a difference, but I like being pedantic enough to point that out._  

Jacobi frowns. 

_You look so cute when you’re confused,_ Maxwell deadpans.  

Jacobi rolls his eyes. “Well excuse me for not immediately understanding complex computer science.”  

Maxwell laughs, and Jacobi’s half certain he’s dreaming again. _It’s not that complicated,_ she says. _I built a program that more or less approximated my living brain is all._  

Slowly, Jacobi realizes the implications of this.

See, he’s spent a lot of time, thinking about copies. Sometimes, late at night, he wonders if his memories are even his own. He thinks about China, remembers the uproarious laughter they’d shared after the whole damn mission, and wonders if those moments he has are real. And, if the memories really are star-forged and not authentic, how could you even know?  

“Doesn’t that mean you’re not really her?” he asks quietly. 

_What?_  

“Aren’t you just a copy, then?” Some part of him hates the words coming out of his mouth. But a copy can’t be the real thing, Jacobi thinks. It _can’t._  

_I—that’s not how it works._  

“Maxwell died.”  

_Yes._  

“You’re here now.”  

_Yes._  

“I just—how can they both be true?”  

A copy was not the same thing as the original. Jacobi clings to that idea with perhaps a stupid stubbornness. But he’s personally invested in it.  

_ Ask me anything.  _

“What?” 

_ Ask me something only I—or I guess  _ her,  _ if you must—would know.  _

Jacobi swallows painfully. He wonders if he even wants to know the answer that lies down this familiar path, but he obliges. “What was my favourite part of that Cancun trip?” 

She laughs, which shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. _Getting back on the plane,_ she says. _You said it was the most mind-numbingly boring vacation you’ve ever been on and that you’d have rather gouged your eyes out with a rusty spoon than see another one of those beach floaty things._  

Those had been, more or less, exactly what he’d said. Jacobi exhales shakily. “What restaurant did we go to after we got back from Riga?” 

_We didn’t,_ Maxwell promptly replies. _You claimed you could cook and were missing some, I quote, ‘nice homecooked kimchee’ and nearly poisoned me when you served up what basically amounted to rotten cabbages. Delicious._  

“You wouldn’t have  _ died, _ ” Jacobi mutters. 

_ Who knows,  _ Maxwell says, breezy again.  _ You only say that because you never even ate any of it yourself.  _

“I’ll get the recipe right someday,” Jacobi says, crossing his arms. “Just you wait.”  

_ Might have to hold off on the taste test,  _ Maxwell teases.  _ I don’t think they’d made electronic taste buds yet.  _

Jacobi’s mouth goes dry. “Right.” 

Maxwell is uncharacteristically frustrated when she says,  _ ugh, sorry. I just thought it’d be easier for you if I just jumped into it. No looking back and all that, right?  _

“Is it easy for you?” Jacobi wonders what it would be like, to suddenly be a different sort of him. To be a Jacobi that has the same memories, lived the same life, but is essentially, not the same flesh and bone him. 

Then he realizes the dangerous path his thoughts are wandering on and shuts it down completely. 

_ It’s easier than you’d think,  _ Maxwell says, and he wonders if she’s thinking the same thing. 

Then, a breeze rattles through the small closet of a room. Jacobi puts his hands on the metal walls again and wonders if there’s anything out there, still. He thinks of the brilliant white-hot flash of a bomb going off, how everything changes in that split second, blinding you until everything comes back again, settled, but different.

“You’re not her,” he says again, still hating the words, wishing desperately that they weren’t true. 

Maxwell is silent. Something, somewhere, shakes. The whole room shudders. 

“But you’re still here,” he finishes. 

_ Yeah,  _ Maxwell says.  _ I am.  _

Jacobi runs a hand through his hair and decides he’s done with being pathetic. “Good,” he says. “That was a pretty crappy thing you did, you know, dying on me.” 

Maxwell scoffs.  _ We both know you didn’t have anything as sophisticated as my back-up plan knocking around, so, really, you should be thanking me for dying before you did.  _

“What I do know is that you just enjoy the attention.” 

_ I never said I didn’t.  _

“You could sell this, probably,” Jacobi muses. 

_Oh this isn’t replicable. You’d need someone capable of logging their own neural patterns along side simultaneously coming up with the code._  

“You’re insufferable.”  

_ I’m one of a kind.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Uh so I have a lot of thoughts about doubling and repetition in this podcast and this fic is my way of expressing them I guess


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